Month: February 2008

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Lessons from tacky Heath Ledger jokes, final edition

It’s nearly a month since I posted my tacky Heath Ledger joke page. What have we learned? Truth be told, not a lot more than I wrote in the Day 1 lessons and the items tagged “heath ledger”.

But let’s look at the total traffic anyway, this time using a graph from Google Analytics which shows visits only visitors to the jokes page.

Graph of one month of Heath Ledger-related traffic

As of just now, there’s been 11,717 page views in total, representing 8,798 unique visitors who stayed on average for 3 mins 44 secs per visit — quite respectable!

Traffic took a couple of days to peak — the first day being fuelled by Google Adwords — with a secondary peak the following week when Ledger’s funeral arrangements hit the news. Google rates the peaks as about 1000 visits a day and even now, a month later, we’re still seeing 60 to 80 visits a day.

As for the jokes themselves, well… to be honest I really don’t want to read them again. Most of them were crap. If you’ve got any astounding sociological observations, feel free to post a comment.

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Mini Review: The Fabulous Punch & Judy Show

Photograph of scene from The Fabulous Punch & Judy ShowOK, I don’t see much theatre these days. But when I do, I usually stumble across something special. And so it was with The Fabulous Punch & Judy Show.

In many ways this is perfectly a standard Punch & Judy show, apart from using live actors instead of puppets. And apart from three actors playing Punch simultaneously, including Arky Michael. And apart from the gay angle, with Punch’s masculinity under threat from an attractive youth.

And apart from a most disturbing version of a Sherbet song.

Written by Brent Thorpe, who also plays Punch, and directed by Anthony Skuse, this play is a dark, wittily delicious one-act treat. ’Pong’s photos show off the simple but effective staging. I suspect it’ll be swamped by other, higher-profile Mardi Gras fare, but it deserves to pull audiences.

The Fabulous Punch & Judy Show is playing at the Cleveland Street Theatre, 199 Cleveland Street, Redfern, until 29 February.

[Disclosure: My old friend Garry Finch is stage manager and he gave us tickets, but I wrote this of my own accord.]

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An open letter to Senator the Hon David Johnston

Watching the Senate Estimates today, I’ve been amused by the antics. Lining up all the Senators, the Minister, public servants and parliamentary staff must cost a bomb per hour, so you’d hope the time was spent wisely. Sadly, no.

My observations — in between other work, so this isn’t representative:

  • Senator Stephen Conroy’s little joke of re-reading the PM’s statement about pay restraint whenever anyone asked about executive salaries wore thin. Please, just have the spine to say, “No, I won’t be making a separate statement.”
  • Senator Simon Birmingham wasted time asking the head of SBS questions whose answers could have easily been found on their website or in their annual report. Maybe you should organise a coffee with him or a staff member to catch up on these basics.
  • Senator Eric Abetz had a detailed list of quite specific questions for Australia Post. It’s precisely this kind of forensic examination which gives Senate Estimates such importance to our democracy.
  • Senator David Johnstone was… no, he gets more than a bullet point!

Senator Johnstone was angry that when the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) awarded two new community radio licenses in Perth last month, one long-running “aspirant” (license applicant) called Western Sports Media wasn’t a winner.

Apparently some cricket fans were upset. However Senator Johnstone tackled the ACMA representatives with what I thought was inappropriate aggression — particularly as he obviously wasn’t across the details. I therefore fired off an email…

Continue reading “An open letter to Senator the Hon David Johnston”

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BitTorrent vs the Supreme Court of Victoria

Last night Channel Nine screened the crime drama Underbelly everywhere across Australia — except Victoria, where it was banned following a Supreme Court order. But thanks to the joys of BitTorrent, thousands of people have already downloaded it from the Internet. The law cannot cope in this new era.

As the screenshot shows, Underbelly was online within two hours of broadcast. By mid-morning today, 6500+ people had downloaded it from Mininova alone.

Screenshot of Underbelly downloads available on Mininova

As with the Corey Delaney episode before it, this highlights the stupidity of the law in the bold new age of the Internet. I have no complaint with Justice Betty King’s decision. She’s just upholding the law as it stands. The law, alas, is hopelessly inadequate.

Who, I wonder, has this kind of law reform on their agenda. Anyone?

Bonus links: